Oral history 15.12.05RM with Roman Mukerjee

Roman talks about establishing a Buddhist temple and translation service for Cambodian, Laos and Vietnamese refugees in Quebec to make them feel welcome and provide settlement support.

Transcript

RM: Well, I’ll tell you, the bottom line is that with those communities in their state when they came out of shock and civil wars and persecution and dumping by governments and so on, they were not interested in talk to government. Okay. So I knew that right from the start. And I also know their mentality, you know, how they work, you know, listen to them and how you can engage and find out, you know, how you get information and so on. It’s part of like in India. So I told my boss, I said, “Look, you’re not going to see me at the desk.” (laughs) Okay. I said, “I’m going to go to these communities where they’re settled and fish from there,” you know, “to see what is their needs, and see how can we best respond, or, give them references, where you could go better,” you know. And my prime responsibility was with them, to make sure that, you know, they, they get a settlement onus.

The one interesting piece that I did with them was to establish in their case, Buddhist temple. Very important. If you don’t have a center like that, they don’t feel at home. That is where they feel they belong, in a sense, in the initial. And that is where they meet all others. And that is where they have a certain pride to and respect and of course spirituality. So that was my priority, get that in place, and we got funding from the municipality, from the—municipal—Montréal Municipality and, and donations, and from themselves, too, of course. They want to be a part of it, you know, but they didn’t have that much money, you know, so that was one thing that I am proud to say that we did establish. I did also establish a translation service, the Cambodian, Laos, Vietnamese in one center to handle all translation. Any kind, if it was at a hospital, you need some—suddenly, you know, we will help you. If it’s some documents, we can help you, you see, depending obviously on the timing and how much they can do, but doing very well, they were, they were excellent. Under one roof. Three of them, which you never think would happen, but it did. Because they had the same problem. Translation.

Biography

Roman Mukerjee was born in Zlín, Czechoslovakia in 1943 during Nazi occupation to a Christian Slovakian mother and a Hindu Indian father. Roman and his parents returned to India in 1947, where he attended Saint Joseph’s College in Darjeeling. He came to Canada in 1963 to pursue a bachelor’s then a master’s degree in political science. Roman then taught humanities at Dawson College in Quebec for nine years. Inspired by Prime Minister Trudeau's policies in the early 1970s, he chose to stay in Canada and has actively promoted multiculturalism around the country. He worked for the federal government as a senior policy analyst from 1982-1997, where he helped implement and apply the Multiculturalism Act. He is married to a Jewish-Canadian woman and has four children, including an adopted Inuit daughter and an adopted Honduran daughter. Roman speaks Czech, Hindi, English and French.

More Information

Video oral history interview conducted by Emily Burton on 5 December 2015 at the Courtyard Marriott Hotel in Ottawa, Ontario. This interview is unrestricted; please contact Museum staff for access to full interview.

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